


Loss

by beehoony



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Duty, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Loss, Love, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 10:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3286751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beehoony/pseuds/beehoony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had not realised what he was afraid to lose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loss

The guard patrols had been established. Scouts latrines dug, enough tents set up, people fed and watered. Druffalo fed and watered. He mechanically ticked things off a list, numbly staring at a map of the Frostbacks. All that there was left to do was wait. Wait for the blizzard to blow itself out. Wait for the scouts to return and then figure out where they were. Wait for...the Herald to find them.

* * *

Mother Giselle patiently endured the bone-crushing grip of the soldier as the healers cleaned the deep ragged wound on his leg, slowly picking out shards of red lyrium. The commander entered the tent, brushing snow off his shoulders. His entrance was largely ignored; he was not an unfamiliar sight in the infirmary. He made his way around, speaking a few quiet words to each person until he stood before the Revered Mother.

"Mother Giselle?" His voice was uncharacteristically hoarse, and he could not meet her gaze. "I know that you are busy...but can I speak to you for a moment?"

She led him to a dark corner of the healer's tent, where they could speak in relative privacy. He knelt before her, resting his head on clasped hands. "Please, mother, if you would say the Chant with me-"

She started with the Canticle of Trials. "Though all before me is shadow,

Yet shall the Maker be my guide."

"I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond." He recited in little more than a whisper.

"For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light-"

"-And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost," he finished, face flushing as he pressed his forehead against his hands.

"Have hope, my child. I suspect that the Maker still has plans for the Herald, and that she will yet return to us."

His head snapped up, lips parted in preparation of a half hearted denial before she laid a gentling hand on his head. "It is not a sin to love."

"To  _love_?" The commander seemed more confused than anything else. "Did you think that...ah, I...um, the Herald? That is, not the, um, case." The last sentence tripped out with pauses at all the wrong places. He cleared his throat nervously.

She had wedded too many couples to mistake the way the commander and the Herald looked at each other. Nonetheless, she did not challenge him, merely gazed at him levelly until he looked away, colour rising to his cheeks again.

"I pray she is not lost to us," he said quietly. "As we all do."

"As we all do," she echoed, before standing to leave.

* * *

Sand stung Rylen's eyes as the wind picked up. He squinted at the commander with watery eyes, waiting for his orders, but Cullen said nothing. He simply stared at the rubble, silent and stony faced.

"Did you see that rift open and close as that bridge collapsed, commander? It was uncanny. Half those bloody bricks probably brained some poor sod in the Fade."

"I saw it," Cullen replied harshly.

A runner slid around the corner and pounded towards them, shouting breathlessly, "Commander! Demons are pouring through the rift in the main courtyard, and the remaining Wardens are aiding in the fight against the demons."

"Tell the officers to hold the line. Reinforce the main courtyard, and make sure there are rotations for relief of the wounded and fatigued. Half the squads of mages and templars are to support our men and the Wardens in the main courtyard. The rest are to sweep the fortress. Clear any stray demons and make sure there are no other rifts."

The runner thumped his gauntlet over his heart and took off again.

"Where do you want me, commander? Shall I go to the main courtyard?"

"No. Take your best men and search the rubble. The Inquisitor was on that bridge."

"Commander-" His voice faltered. If that was true, then...

"Find the Inquisitor. I must join them in the courtyard." He finally met Rylen's eyes, and his were hard. "Go."

* * *

He waited.

They found nothing in the rubble save an unconscious magister, over whom the templars now stood guard.

She wasn't there.

The demons continue to burst from the rift sporadically, but what he could feel, even with his withdrawal-dulled senses, was something  _big_ pressing against the Veil.

She could still be deep within the piles of broken stone. Adamant would be her cairn.

They could not close the rift, but they could not leave it either. It spawned demons in numbers that would devastate their retreat.

Solas had theorised that they were in the Fade. "In the absence of anything else that fits the evidence, we must assume that the Inquisitor has learned to use her mark to open, as well as close rifts."

Cullen could not decide which was worse; the thought of her wandering the Fade with Dorian (mages were familiar with the Fade, he would be a help to her), Sera and the Iron Bull (both disastrous choices) or the thought of her lying wounded in the ruin while his troops slowly searched, moving one stone at a time.

She would come back. He should have kissed her before he sent her on after Clarel. He should have made her promise to be careful. He should have made her swear that she would come back.

He should have told her that he loved her.

The coin was heavy in his pocket as he drew his sword. "Inquisition! We swore to seal the Breach, and we did! We swore to follow. We swore to fight. We swore to triumph!"

The troops roared as green light split and cracked through the dusty air. They followed. They fought. They died.

* * *

He knew she was coming long before she came into view. The army had been winning ground for hours, but every inch was hard fought. The red templars had set up blockades, and their marksmen were difficult to dislodge. Nonetheless, he had flanked them and had them fighting on all fronts.

She cut through the messy battlefield, swift and sure as a well thrown knife. He heard the cheers even as he joined the ugly melee in front of the temple gates. He felt the prickle of her magic as she neared, and then she was there, a force of nature inexorably crushing the red templars to the ground to be cut down by their blades. One man would burst into flame and another would stiffen as ice crystallised over his skin.

When it was over, she pulled herself in, the crackle of her magic fading beyond the edge of hearing. Nonchalantly, she pulled out a bag of nuts and began eating them. Sera immediately stuck her hand into the bag, pilfering fully half of it. The Inquisitor politely offered some to Solas and Morrigan, both of whom declined. She shrugged and wolfed the rest down.

It was not in his nature to make the same mistake twice. Before she entered the elven temple, he maintained enough decorum to ask to speak to her in private, only to pull her behind a ruined wall and kiss her hard. As he led her off, he heard a disgusted sound that could have been either Morrigan or Cassandra.

"Be safe. Come back. I love you."

She whispered, "I've got luck on my side, remember?"

"And so you do." He forced himself to watch her go. He had armed her as best he could. The rune that would unmake Samson's armour was safely tucked in a pocket.

She turned back at the end of the long gateway, lifting a hand in farewell before she moved out of sight. He then turned his attention back to dismantling Corypheus' army. Each one that fell was one less sword turned at her throat.

* * *

Dorian watched the muscle in Cullen's jaw clench as the scout babbled on about how there was nothing but Samson, dead red templars and a broken mirror deep within the temple. The mysterious elves had abandoned their posts, melting like shadows into the verdant greenery.

When Cullen's flinty stare turned to him, he merely shrugged. "Don't look at me. Most Tevinter mages don't take the study of elven artifacts seriously. Our second resident apostate never let me within ten feet of her eluvian." Morrigan and Solas would have been the ones to ask, and they too had apparently vanished into thin air. With the Inquisitor. She was making a habit of it.

The commander ran his thumb along the hilt of his sword, frowning as he did. "Bring Samson back to Skyhold to face the Inquisitor's justice. Have Leliana and Josephine meet me back at the main camp. After that, I need an update from the Orlesian officers." When the scout left, he jerked his head at the temple. "Let's move."

"Didn't you just say you were going to meet our ladies of iron back at the main camp?"

"I will, when we are done here. She cannot have just  _vanished_."

"Perhaps they travelled through the eluvian. Did she tell you of the crossroads that Morrigan showed her?"

"Yes," he admitted reluctantly. "I just-I need to see it. The scout said there were clear signs of battle. I-"

"I know." As a rule, Dorian tried not to fret about her, but simply reminded himself that she had an unrivalled knack for survival. He doubted that viewing the temple would give Cullen any reassurance; indeed, he often felt physically ill when he looked at the swathe of destruction she left in her wake, especially when he wondered how they had survived.

He was not wrong on that count. Cullen looked even more grim as he examined the burn marks on the walls and in the shrubbery, then the deep gouges in the earth where the dragon had landed. There was, in fact, not much besides a broken mirror and a bloodied pool of water before it.

"She's probably back in Skyhold by now, putting her feet up and having a cup of warm cocoa," he suggested.

Cullen smiled thinly. "I pray that is true. It is time for us to go. Josephine and Leliana will be waiting for me. I must organise the forces here before we return to Skyhold."

* * *

"-And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost."

Her voice was warm, quiet. She had snuck up on him, treading light in her soft boots. "A prayer for you?"

"For those we have lost...and those which I am afraid to lose."

* * *

_Counter piece of sorts found[here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3479309) . I hope you enjoyed it!_


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